We just got back from Arizona, where Brian has family and friends. It’s so nice to get out of the cold and the rain for a while. To be perfectly honest, though, I’ve learned that when I live in a place where it doesn’t rain like, at least every 10 days or so, I get a bit off kilter.

For a few days of the vacation, we stayed with Brian’s grandparents, Cookie and Dottie, who probably have the coolest grandparent names ever. In fact, I love to drop their names into conversation, like I know a celebrity or something. Cookie’s mother was quite a painter, and her art is found all over their house. Here are some of my favorites:

Self portrait of Margaret, Brian’s Great Grandmother, 1945. Self portraits can show a lot of honesty, and I think this is a great example of that.

Portraits of Cookie and his younger brother, Eddie. These paintings aren’t very big, maybe seven or eight inches high. I imagine Margaret painting these very quickly and easily, wanting to capture her boys before they went off to play.